


Not Just One of the Guys

by frankiesin



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, F/F, Re Upload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: The AU where Panic is from a small town in Georgia, for some reason.





	Not Just One of the Guys

**Author's Note:**

> This is also a fic that I'd orphaned and then regretted. Again, I won't be updating it, but I still wanted it under my name. So it's here now.

**Prologue**

 

Linda’s mother died when she was seven years old. She had some idea of what cancer was, and what it meant for someone to die, but for the most part, Linda was just watching her dad and her two older brothers to see how she was supposed to react to everything. She missed her mom, of course, but her dad and her brothers were still alive and they were sad, which sucked. Linda didn’t want to see her family sad just because her mom was gone. They deserved happiness. They were good people. 

 

Linda’s dad held a funeral for her mom at their church. Her dad had served in the army for two years when he was younger, before coming back home to Milledgeville, getting married, and having five kids with Linda’s mom. Linda was the middle child, and the only girl. At the funeral, she wore a dress, even though she hated it and her brothers all got to wear pants. 

 

After the funeral, people kept coming to her house with casseroles, which sucked because Linda and her brothers were all tired of casseroles, and there were too many to take a break and eat something else. Her dad didn’t want the food to go bad, which made sense because now he was in charge of raising five kids and he didn’t really know what he was doing. He was doing a good job, and Linda made sure to tell him that, even though he wasn’t at home a lot. He had to work more than before, since her mom wasn’t there to work part time at the repair shop and bring home extra money for Linda and her brother’s school stuff. 

 

Linda wished that the nice ladies from church would bring school clothes instead of casseroles, because her dad could cook on his own, but he couldn’t keep up with how fast she and her brothers were growing. One night, a week before Linda started second grade, her dad called her into his bedroom. Linda sat down on her section of the bed, where she would sit when it was bedtime and her family would get together to sing a song before everyone went to their rooms to go to sleep. 

 

“Linda, you know I love you and your brothers and I’d do whatever I had to to make y’all happy, right?” Her dad asked. He looked tired. Linda nodded. He smiled, still tired. “Can you do something for me?”

 

“Sure, dad,” Linda said. “What is it?”

 

She was hoping he’d say she could come with him to his construction job. Linda loved building things with her dad and her brothers in the garage, and she wanted to get to do it for real. 

 

“I can’t get you a lot of clothes for school. You’re a growing girl, but I can’t keep up with you,” he said. “Would you be okay with wearing some of your brothers’ older things? I know they’re boy clothes, but…”

 

“I don’t mind,” Linda said. “I like their clothes anyway. There aren’t a lot of rhinestones and glitter on them. Glitter’s annoying. It gets everywhere.”

 

Her dad laughed, looking relieved. Linda didn’t see why it was such a big deal. She didn’t mind wearing boy clothes. She already wore boy jeans, because they were better for running around and getting messy in. Sure, some of the girls at school thought that she was weird, but Linda didn’t mind. She wasn’t trying to get a lot of friends. She had four brothers, and her dad, and they all liked her, so it was okay if she wasn’t super popular at school. 

 

She wore a t-shirt with a monster truck and a pair of jean shorts on the first day of second grade, and stood at the bus stop with her chin held high and her backpack securely on her shoulders. Her younger brother, David, was starting Kindergarten, and so she was making sure that no one picked on him while they waited for the bus. There were three other kids there, two girls that Linda remembered from last year, and another boy that she’d never seen before. One of her older brothers was there, too, but he was in fifth grade and was standing away from everyone else because he thought he was cooler than them. 

 

Linda walked up to the new boy, bringing David with her. “Hey, I’m Linda. Are you new here?”

 

“No, I just didn’t ride the bus last year,” the boy said. He had curly brown hair, and his voice was quiet. He was wearing a Georgia bulldogs baseball cap, and he stared at the ground when he spoke. 

 

“Okay,” Linda said. “You can sit with me, if you want. David has to sit in the front, since he’s in Kindergarten, but other than that, there aren’t any assigned seats. The older kids usually claim the back, though.”

 

“Okay,” he said. He still hadn’t told Linda what his name was, but then again, she hadn’t asked. He seemed shy. “I have a friend on this bus. Can she sit with us too?”

 

“Sure,” Linda said. The bus pulled up, then, and everyone got on. Linda’s stop was one of the first stops of the route, and so they all got free reign of the bus. David sat in the first row and immediately started talking to the bus driver--all of the Ignarro kids were super friendly, according to the nice church ladies who still brought casseroles on occasion--and Linda’s older brother headed to the back of the bus. The two girls sat down in the third row, and Linda motioned for the new kid to follow her to where she sat last year, on the sixth row, door side of the bus. 

 

“It’s a good seat,” She said, sliding in and putting her backpack on her lap. “When does your friend get on?”

 

“I think the next stop,” he said. “I’m Ryan. My friend’s name is Serena, by the way. She’s in second grade.”

 

“Me too!” Linda said, a little excited. Hopefully she’d be in the same class as Ryan’s friend. There were only two second grade classes, so there was a good chance that the two of them would be together. Ryan mentioned that he was a grade ahead of Linda and Serena, but that Serena came over to his house, and Ryan to hers, a lot so they were rarely seen apart from each other. 

 

At the next stop, three girls got on. The two younger ones sat in the seat across from David, which meant that they were also in Kindergarten, but the third one came back to where Ryan and Linda were sitting. Ryan scooted over, and the girl settled in beside him. Ryan introduced her as Serena Smith, master of kickball and tree climbing. Serena had bright blue eyes and bangs that were cut straight across her forehead, and very squishy cheeks. Her hair was braided into pigtails, but she took them out and handed one of the hair bands to Linda while they were on the bus. 

 

“I don’t like braids, but my mom thinks they’re cute so she makes me and my sisters wear them,” Serena said. “I don’t even want long hair, but mom and dad say I’ll look like a boy if I cut it off.”

 

“Boys are gross,” Linda said. “I have four brothers and they always leave their clothes on the floor. I’m tired of seeing underwear.”

 

“I clean my underwear,” Ryan said, frowning.

 

Linda shrugged. “Maybe you’re an exception. But most boys are gross.”

 

“Yeah, but at least boys don’t make you do weird things with your hair,” Serena argued. “My mom makes my sisters and me do our hair every morning, and we always have to match. It’s so dumb. My dad just combs his hair before he goes to work, and he doesn’t have to set out his clothes or anything. It’s not fair. Being a boy has to be easier.”

 

“Maybe,” Linda shrugged. “My dad lets me wear overalls like my brothers.”

 

“Lucky,” Serena said. The three of them traded stories all the way to school, and Linda learned that Ryan didn’t have any siblings, which seemed boring. She also learned that Serena’s mom was one of the church ladies, and that she was the one who always made broccoli casserole. Linda liked the broccoli casserole, which was good, because if she and Serena were going to be friends, she didn’t want to hate Serena’s mom’s casserole. That wouldn’t be good. 

 

It didn't take long before Linda joined Ryan and Serena’s duo and made it a trio. By the time Linda was in fourth grade, she, Ryan, and Serena were having bi-weekly sleepovers at the Smith’s house. Linda’s dad always offered to host them in his living room, but there wasn’t a lot of room in the Ignarro’s house with five kids running around and leaving messes everywhere. Linda didn’t want to make her dad’s life harder by adding more laundry for him to do when he got home from work. She and her older brothers did what they could to help, but their dad was still on his own most of the time, and he had to do a lot to raise all of them. 

 

The year that Ryan went off to middle school sucked. Serena and Linda had to watch a bunch of videos about puberty, which was weird because Linda’s dad had never mentioned anything about getting a period or growing breasts. Then again, he was a guy and Linda was a girl, so maybe his body did different things. 

 

The fifth grade girls had just finished watching the video about female development and puberty, and the teacher had asked if anyone had questions. Linda raised her hand, and ignored how the teacher’s face fell. Linda knew she asked too many questions, but her dad had raised her to want to be smart and ask questions. He always said that if she didn’t ask, who would? Linda knew better than to leave questions unanswered. “Miss, what happens to boys when they get to puberty? My brothers and my dad never mentioned anything about bleeding.”

 

“Linda, I don’t think that’s appropriate,” the teacher said, which didn’t answer Linda’s question. She raised her hand to try and ask again, but the teacher ignored her and instead went on to answer everyone else’s questions. Linda left school that day feeling very angry. 

 

Serena was quiet on the bus, which was different from how she usually was. Usually, Serena always had something to say, whether it was about her parents forcing her to do do some girly thing, or her sisters being ridiculous, or Ryan swooning over another eighth grade girl who would never look his way twice. 

 

Linda nudged her with her elbow. “Hey, are you okay? You’re weirdly quiet.”

 

“I think something’s wrong with me,” Serena said quietly. She looked like she might cry, which Linda didn’t want, because Serena was her best friend (aside from Ryan), and she hated seeing her friends sad. Serena swallowed thickly. “I don’t want to go through puberty. I don’t want to be curvy and look like my mom. I don’t think I’m supposed to look like her. I think I’m supposed to look like my dad.”

 

“You mean you want to be a boy?” Linda asked. She didn’t understand what the big deal about boys was, really. All the other girls in her grade were talking about guys, and guy crushes, and Linda just didn’t get it. When one of them had asked who she had a crush on, she’d panicked and said Ryan, because he was the first guy to come to her mind that wasn’t one of her brothers, but she didn’t want to kiss Ryan. She didn’t want to kiss any boy, really. 

 

“No, I think I  _ am _ a boy,” Serena whispered, her voice barely audible over the sound of everyone on the bus. “I hate hearing my name, and I hate when my mom calls me her beautiful daughter, and I hate the thought of becoming a woman. I don’t want to become a woman.”

 

“Then don’t,” Linda said. She didn’t have a great grasp on how puberty worked, but it wasn’t her fault. She’d soon find out that sexual education was lacking, especially in the southern United States. “Find out what boys do in puberty, and do that. Also, if you want me to call you a boy name, that’s cool. My brothers jokingly call me Luke sometimes.”

 

“Really?” Serena asked. 

 

Linda nodded. “Yeah. My dad thinks it’s weird, but I don’t mind. It’s better than when they call each other pussies and girls. Like being a girl is a bad thing or something.”

 

“They do know you’re their sister, right?”

 

“I think they forget that I’m just like any other girl,” Linda said. “The only difference is that I like building things with wood, not Barbie doll houses.”

 

“You’re like, a cooler girl,” Serena said. She bit her lower lip. “Also, if you wanna call me Spencer, would you? I like that name, and I think I’d make a good Spencer.”

 

“Sure,” Linda said. “My best friend is now Spencer, and Spencer’s one of the only two boys I don’t think are gross. Ryan’s the other one, of course, except Ryan’s kind of gross now that he’s in middle school and wears weird cologne to try and get girls to like him.”

 

“True. Ryan’s weird. Hopefully we’ll never be like that, whenever we start getting crushes,” Spencer said. Linda laughed. If she ever wore cologne to impress someone, her dad and her brothers would never let her live it down. She’d seen how her older brothers tried to hide their girlfriends from the other Ignarros. Linda’s family was relentless when it came to embarrassing their siblings about their crushes. 

 

Spencer didn’t tell his mom and dad that he was a boy, but he did tell Ryan, because Ryan was his best friend and was sure to understand. Ryan started smuggling Spencer more masculine clothes, which didn’t work too well once summer came around because Spencer started to grow breasts and Ryan was flatter than Linda’s family’s ironing board. Ryan was also super skinny and tall, and while Spencer was pretty tall for her age (as was Linda, so she tended to forget), he wasn’t skinny. He was curvy, with noticeable hips and an ever growing chest. By July, Spencer had to wear a real bra, and he had a hard time hiding his chest under Ryan’s t-shirts. 

 

The three of them were in the Ignarro’s backyard, eating ice cream from the ice cream truck that came around whenever school wasn’t in session. Ryan was wearing a tank top, but it was really just a t-shirt that had the sleeves cut off, and Linda could see hair growing under his armpits. His skin was red and uneven, and greasy. He picked a piece of strawberry off of his ice cream. “Spence, maybe you should just tell your mom and dad what’s up.”

 

“What if they think there’s something wrong with me?” Spencer said, pulling at his shirt to try and make his boobs less obvious. It wasn’t fair that Spencer, who was a boy, ended up with boobs while Linda still had the same amount of cleavage as Ryan. She had a bit more, but she was still wearing a camisole and nothing else. Her dad had invested in a few books about gender and women when Linda had complained that the school didn’t tell her anything helpful about puberty. 

 

Linda rolled her eyes behind her Walmart sunglasses. They were aviators, because she’d heard from her older brother that all the cool guys in middle school wore them now. “Well, then they’re jerks, and you can come live with me and be my brother.”

 

“Seriously?” Ryan said. “How come you get to adopt Spencer? You already have four brothers, maybe I want one.”

 

“Your dad doesn’t give us ice cream money,” Linda said. 

 

Ryan frowned, and bit angrily into his ice cream. There was something going on with him and his dad, but he wouldn’t talk about it. He’d also started dying his hair black, and had asked Linda to buy him eyeliner a few times. Linda thought it was weird, because she didn’t wear makeup, and neither did Spencer, so why was Ryan interested in it? She’d never been able to buy him eyeliner, though, because when she asked her dad, he said she was too young to be wearing makeup and that she had to wait until high school. 

 

“It’s okay, Ry,” Spencer said. “You’re basically my brother anyway. And besides, if I move in with Linda, I’ll be right across the street.”

 

“I guess,” Ryan said. He didn’t look very happy about it. 

 

Linda sighed and decided to change the subject, since Ryan was drawing into himself. “So, I like girls.”

 

“Yeah, they’re pretty cool,” Ryan said. “I’d love to kiss one, at some point.”

 

“Me too, actually,” Linda said. It wasn’t something that had come out of nowhere, but instead was a part of Linda that just made sense. She’d mentioned it to her dad, when they were looking through one of his gender books together, and he’d explained that that meant she might be a lesbian. Linda thought that that was cool, being a lesbian. Linda the lesbian had a cool little ring to it. Maybe she’d become a lumberjack and become Linda the lesbian lumberjack. 

 

“Wait, like, you like-like girls, or you think they’re cool?” Ryan asked. 

 

“I like-like girls,” Linda said. “My dad said that means I’m a lesbian. Also, Spencer’s transgender, which basically means he’s moving across genders.”

 

“Dude, what if someone’s superpower was that they could just transport across genders at will?” Spencer said. “That’d be so cool.”

 

“Dude, that’s you,” Ryan said, pointing his ice cream stick at Spencer. “You’re like Superman, except that instead of Kryptonite, your only weakness is boobs.”

 

“I think we’re all weak for boobs, since Linda’s a lesbian and you never shut up about girls having cute boobs,” Spencer said. He made a face. “That’s weird, by the way, how much you talk about boobs. They’re not that interesting.”

 

“I think they are,” Ryan said. Linda raised her hand in agreement. She didn’t pay too much attention to other girls’ boobs, but she did think that they were nice. Ryan pointed to Linda. “See? Linda gets it.”

 

“I’m a lesbian,” Linda said. “I have to get it.”

 

“Do you think my parents would get it if I told them that I was a boy, or should I keep pretending I’m not?” Spencer said, bringing the three of them back to the beginning of the conversation. Linda wasn’t too sure. When she’d talked to her dad about lesbians and being transgender, he’d warned her that there were a lot of people who thought that lesbians and transgender people were wrong, or confused. Sometimes parents would kick their kids out because of it, but Linda’s dad promised that he would never do that to Linda, and that he loved her no matter who she loved or kissed. 

 

“I don’t know,” Linda said. “My dad knows a lot about transgender people, because he keeps reading books about it. Maybe you can get him to talk to your mom and dad about it, and explain stuff. Adults tend to like hearing things from other adults instead of kids.”

 

Spencer ended up doing that. At first, his mom and dad weren’t happy about it, but Linda’s dad was patient and answered all of their questions. In the end, Spencer’s parents accepted that they had a son and asked him what he wanted. Spencer mentioned that he hated his boobs, and wanted to get rid of them, and so the Smiths started looking into what could be done. Apparently, there was a surgery to remove boobs, but Spencer couldn’t get it until he was eighteen. He could, however, go on a medication that blocked puberty, and, when he was sixteen he could start taking guy hormones with his parents’ permission. 

 

It was kind of awesome, because Spencer’s parents decided to go ahead and change his name legally, so that he could start middle school as a guy and not have to worry about being called the wrong name. 

 

It wasn’t that easy, though. Middle school turned out to be actual hell. The only good things to come out of it were Youth Group, Jon, and Linda kissing a girl for the first time. Linda kissed a girl for the first time at the middle school winter formal, but it was on a dare and afterwards the girl, Catie, said that she was straight and only did it because she knew that boys thought girl on girl action was hot. So, that sucked, but at least Linda was the first in her friend group to kiss anyone. 

 

Spencer got teased a lot, because even though he was registered as a boy, the school administration sucked and he had to use the girl’s locker room. Luckily, Linda and Spencer had the same class all three years of middle school, so Spencer never had to be alone, and Linda never had to deal with girls calling her a dyke and a creep without Spencer to back her up. 

 

Ryan kissed a boy for the first time at the end of seventh grade. The boy was named Jon, and he was considered a cool kid. He was a year older than Ryan, which made kissing him even more impressive. By the time Ryan and Jon met, in the middle school band trombone section, Ryan was full on goth and Jon had made it a mission to grow a beard before he left middle school. That alone made Jon cool, but no one could understand why he wanted to hang out with Ryan. It turned out that the two of them smoked pot behind the band room sometimes, and one one day in late April, Ryan made his move and kissed Jon. 

 

Jon kissed back, and the two dated for a month and a half before some guys cornered Ryan in the bathroom in the gifted hallway and beat him up, calling him a fag and telling him to go kill himself. Ryan broke up with Jon, but Jon didn’t leave, because he wasn’t an asshole. He actually went after a few of the guys who’d beaten Ryan up, and got suspended for giving them both black eyes. Jon was cool, and because of that, he was allowed into Linda, Spencer, and Ryan’s tiny friend group. 

 

Three became four, and the four of them spent that summer at the pool in Jon’s backyard. That summer was also the summer that Linda got confirmed at her church, and found out that Ryan didn’t believe in God. She was okay with that, because Ryan had also told her, and Spencer and Jon, that his dad was an alcoholic and would sometimes hit him, so it made sense that Ryan didn’t want to talk to God. God had been an asshole to Ryan, and had also let those boys beat him up in a dirty bathroom. 

 

Ryan was still straightening his hair and wearing too much eye makeup that summer, and it always got messed up in Jon’s pool and made him look like a raccoon. 

 

That was the summer where Linda met Brendon. Brendon was also one of five kids, but unlike Linda, he was the youngest, and he and all of his siblings were homeschooled by their mom. Brendon’s only interaction outside of his family was at church Youth Group, and he was hyperactive and desperate for friends. Linda befriended him immediately, and then the two of them became friends with Dallon, who was part of the Youth Group’s praise band and was four years older than them. He was going to be a junior in high school, and he had a driver’s license, which meant that he could take Linda and Brendon out for milkshakes after Wednesday night meetings. 

 

Brendon’s parents were weirdly strict about who Brendon could and could not hang out with. They refused to let him hang out with Spencer, because Spencer had been kicked out of Youth Group for being transgender, and they refused to let him hang out with Jon or Ryan, because they saw Jon and Ryan as sinful, Godless heathens. Linda and Dallon were okay, though, and so Brendon hung out with them, and Jon, Ryan, and Spencer just happened to be there most of the time. 

 

Linda finally grew into a B cup by the summer before her sophomore year of high school. That was the summer that Dallon came back from college with a girlfriend, and everyone made sure to embarrass the shit out of him in front of her. Breezy was cool, though, and she didn't mind that Spencer was trans or that Linda was a lesbian or that Jon and Ryan swung both ways (Ryan more than Jon). Dallon also had a truck, that he’d bought during the school year so that he could tailgate at games, and so he started driving everyone up to the lake. Brendon had to lie to his parents and say that it was a Bible study thing, but he was eventually able to go with them. 

 

Jon met a girl named Cassie over the winter break of his senior year (Linda was a sophomore and was a little jealous that Jon had dated two different people before she’d even dated one) and took her to prom. They didn’t win anything, but it didn’t matter because they were clearly in love and it was adorable. Everyone teased the shit out of Jon for getting nervous about a girl, because Jon never got nervous. 

 

It was weird when Jon graduated, because Linda was so used to him being in high school with everyone else that it didn't feel right for him to be going off to UGA with Dallon and Breezy. Dallon was older, and had always been like another brother to Linda, so it made sense for him to venture out into adulthood before everyone else. 

 

It was the first night of August, and Spencer, Ryan, and Linda were sitting on the roof of Ryan’s house. Ryan’s dad hadn’t been home in two days, and Ryan was somewhere between worried and hoping that he’d just never return. They had a six pack of Coca-Cola and a bag of Doritos between them, and it felt like the hottest night of the summer. Linda was sixteen, dressed in a tank top and guy’s gym shorts, and sitting between her two best friends. “We’re not going to fall apart when everyone starts going off to college, right? Like, next year, when Ryan leaves and it’s just me, Spence, and Brendon, the rest of our group won’t get bored of dealing with high schoolers?”

 

“Has Dallon gotten tired of us?” Ryan asked. He had a pack of cigarettes in his hand. He’d talked off and on about smoking, saying that there were a bunch of scene girls and punk girls who did it, and some boys too, and that he was trying to fuck a few of them. He still hadn’t smoked a single cigarette, at least in front of Linda. “I mean, we’ve practically grown up around each other. If Dallon and Jon wanted to ditch us, they’d have done it by now.”

 

“Dallon’s the only straight friend we have left,” Spencer said, which was somehow related to the subject at hand. “And Breezy, I guess. She counts as a part of the group, right?”

 

“Obviously,” Linda said. “Pass the Doritos.”

 

Spencer did, and then blurted out, “I think I’m in love with Brendon. In like, a really gay way.”

 

“Dude, seriously?” Ryan said, making a face. “No offense, but Brendon’s fucking weird. He’s a great guy and all, but he’s so…”

 

“Bouncy?” Linda offered, thinking of all the times Brendon and the youth pastor had had to step out of the room to talk about appropriate behaviours for church settings. Brendon had boundless energy, and he was constantly talking, or singing, or narrating people’s lives via singing. It could get annoying sometimes, especially for someone like Ryan, who preferred it when everyone shut up and let him just do his own thing. 

 

“Nah,” Ryan said. “I was thinking straight.”

 

“Shit, really?” Spencer said, looking a little devastated. Linda could sympathise. There were far too many straight girls in school, and not a single gay one. Not even a bi-curious girl looking to see what lipgloss tasted like off of someone else’s mouth. Spencer stuck his legs out over the edge of the roof. “I thought he was at least bi. He doesn’t seem straight.”

 

“Look, Spence, other than Breezy, Linda’s the only girl in our friend group,” Ryan said, like he was some kind of scientist. Ryan had failed a semester of chemistry, and had had to retake it with Brendon and Linda the next year while Spencer was alone in the AP class. “Statistically speaking, if Brendon hasn’t swooned over at least one of us guys, he’s never going to swoon over any guy. I hate to break it to you, but you might be barking up the wrong tree.”

 

“Or maybe Brendon’s a late bloomer,” Linda said. “Not everyone takes one look at a gangly fucker like you at age twelve and immediately knows they’re gay.”

 

“I can’t tell if that was an insult or a compliment,” Ryan said. 

 

“Well, considering Linda’s only into chicks, it’s probably an insult,” Spencer said. “You gangly fucker.”

 

“I’m cute as hell, fuck you,” Ryan said. 

 

“Yeah, and maybe one day you’ll get someone to agree with you on that,” Spencer said. Linda laughed, and Ryan flipped both of them off. It wasn’t as though Spencer or Linda had any room to talk, considering Linda hadn’t kissed anyone since that dare in middle school, and Spencer’s ninth grade girlfriend Haley hadn’t done anything besides hold his hand before finding out he was trans and dumping him. 

 

That week, after Haley dumped Spencer and called him an ugly dyke, was the angriest week of Linda’s life. She, Ryan, and Jon pulled so much shit on Haley that Spencer had to beg them to stop because he was starting to feel bad for her. The three of them agreed to never mention to Spencer that Brendon, whose mom was Haley’s hairdresser, slipped Nair into his mom’s salon shampoo right before Haley’s appointment, and then sold the bottle too her, saying it would make her hair super shiny and pretty. 

 

Brendon, it turned out, was the pettiest of them all. It was a result of being the youngest child and learning what he could and couldn’t get away with under the watchful eyes of his parents. His dad was one of the two pastors at Linda’s church, and Pastor Urie knew everything Brendon and his older siblings did. Brendon was just good at being sneaky.

 

Ryan pulled out a lighter, and put a cigarette in his mouth. “Fuck it, I’ve smoked weed, I can smoke this.”

 

“You’re gonna smell gross,” Spencer warned him. Ryan flicked on the lighter and lit the cigarette anyway. When he blew smoke out, Linda scrunched up her nose and waved a Dorito at him to try and get the smell away. Spencer reached over and flicked it out of her hand, intending to hit Ryan in the face, but missing. The Dorito flew off the roof and into Ryan’s front yard, gone forever in the dying summer grass. 

 

“Well, that sucks,” Ryan said. 

 

“Good thing we have more,” Linda said, holding up another Dorito. 

 

“Man, I can’t believe Jon chose a graduation party over this,” Ryan said. “It’s not everyday you get to sit on a roof and eat Doritos with your friends.”

 

“True,” Spencer said, and snatched the Dorito from Linda again. He hurled it off the roof, and almost made it to the road. “Shit, I was close.”

 

Linda grabbed another Dorito and grinned. “Last one to get a Dorito in the road has to buy milkshakes! Go!”

 

“Fuck you, you play softball!” Ryan yelled, as Linda and Spencer both started hurling Doritos off the roof. Linda laughed, and Spencer stood up to get a better angle. He made sure to tell Ryan that maybe if he’d done sports in school instead of skipping gym class to hide out with Jon behind the school, then maybe he’d have a better throwing arm. Naturally, Ryan responded by tossing a Dorito at Spencer’s head. Linda ducked, in case it turned out to be a full on war, but secretly, she was delighted. 

 

This was her life. She was a lesbian, daughter of a man who’d lost his wife and made himself into the best dad ever, and here she was on a roof with her two best friends, throwing Doritos at a road. There wasn’t much else she could ask for, except for summer to never stop being like this. Linda was in love with her life, and never wanted things to change. She grinned, grabbed another Dorito, and hurled it into the air. It hit the road, and she screamed with joy. Perfect. Nothing could top that. 

 

 

* * *

 

**Chapter one**

 

Linda had two more days of school left, and then she was done forever. She’d managed to scrape out a natural A in calculus, which meant she didn’t have to take that exam, and so she didn’t have to take any final exams. She was luckier than Spencer, who’d been cruising on A’s in everything except English, because he had the shitty English teacher who believed that her interpretation of the book was the only correct one, and graded accordingly. 

 

Linda was glad that she had Dr. Glenn for senior English, because he didn’t care what conclusions people drew, so long as they had the text to back it up. Thus, Linda had written her senior English paper on feminism and lesbian coding in American literature, and come out of the class with a solid A-. She’d been gloating to Spencer about it ever since. 

 

She waited until the bell rang, and then practically sprinted out of her calculus class to try and get to the bus before Spencer did. It was always a race between the two of them, because they still shared a seat even though they were both eighteen and seniors in high school. Linda also liked getting on the bus before David, so that she could lounge in his seat until he showed up and then ruffle his hair as she walked past him. He hated it, but she was his older sister so she had to be obnoxious somehow. 

 

Spencer, asshole that he was, had band class last and so he almost always got on the bus before Linda. Today was no exception, and Spencer was standing in the back seat of the bus, his arms over the seat in front of him, and grinning up at Linda. She flipped him off so that the bus driver wouldn’t see, and dropped her backpack off beside him before going back to wait for David. She pulled her phone out while she waited for her brother to get on the bus, to see if there was anything interesting that she’s missed. 

 

_ dad: got ur truck tires fixed. i kno u wanted to do it urself but i was in the area and figured id giv u an early grad present (the other one is still a secret) _

 

_ ryan: ok so remember the guy i was fucking in like march? well we’re dating now and i’m currently in his moms car on the way to their house in dallas fucking texas so i wont be home for another week tell spencer he cant have my guitar if they kill me _

 

_ brendon: r u coming to wednesday stuff i cant handle another week alone  _

 

Linda made sure to respond to all of them ( _ dad: thanks!!, ryan: good luck i’ll let spence know, brendon: yeah sure _ ) and then got up to let David into his seat. She messed up his hair, he ducked away from her, and she headed back to her seat beside Spencer, making sure to shove him over so that she got her fair share of seat space. “Ryan’s on their way to Texas, apparently.”

 

Spencer made a face. “What the fuck is Ryan doing in Texas? I thought they hated that state.”

 

“The guy they were fucking over spring break is now their boyfriend, and I think he kidnapped them to make Ryan meet the parents,” Linda said. “Also, you don’t get Ryan’s guitar. I think they’re giving it to Jon in their will.”

 

“Well, fuck,” Spencer said. “I should have made out with them when I had the chance.”

 

“Ryan wanted to make out with you?” Linda said. She’d never heard about that before, and she’d known Spencer and Ryan for ten years. “When did that happen and why did no one tell me?”

 

“Ryan wanted to make out with anyone who was willing,” Spencer said. “They still do, except now they also have sex with anyone who’s pretentious and relatively attractive. It’d be funnier if they didn’t constantly tease me about still not having kissed anyone.”

 

“Seriously?” Linda said. “You still haven’t kissed anyone? Not even once?”

 

“I’m a gay trans dude living in smalltown Georgia,” Spencer said. “Outside of our friend group, I’m not that attractive to people.”

 

“Right,” Linda said. “I forgot that most people are straight. For whatever reason.”

 

“Incredible. You know that pretty much everyone else in our grade is straight, right? Have you just been ignoring them this whole time?” Spencer asked. Linda nodded. She did her best to ignore straight people, because the majority of them were annoying as hell, and she had better things to do than waste her time on straight people. Men thought she was a fetish, and women were grossed out by her when they found out she was a lesbian. It was easier to just avoid them. 

 

Spencer laughed. “Of course you have. I wish I could do that. Straight people are fucking everywhere.”

 

“Unfortunately,” Linda said. The bus started up, and she and Spencer pulled out their headphones to go into their own worlds for a bit while they road home. Spencer’s sisters weren’t on the bus. They were probably off doing some extracurricular activity, because they were both hypercompetitive about everything. Spencer was competitive, too, but in a different way. He felt like he had to be the best if he wanted to be seen as a real man, even though he had friends and family who knew he already was one. 

 

Linda wasn’t competitive by nature; she knew she was good at some things, but she never felt the need to prove herself. She played softball, but she was never elected captain. She was on the debate team, but she never got over-emotional and too involved in the passion behind the debate. She had her shit together, but she never let it get to her head. Linda’s brothers made sure that never happened. They all kept each other in check. 

 

Linda’s stop was still the one right before Spencer’s, but they lived about five minutes from each other. She waved goodbye, and then she and David got off the bus and headed up the street to their house. Linda’s youngest brother, Scott, was in his final year of middle school, and so he didn’t get home for another two hours. Her dad was still at work, as were her two older brothers, so Linda and David had the house to themselves for a bit. Linda texted Jon, Spencer, and Dallon as soon as she got inside and kicked her shoes off. She didn’t have any homework for the next day, because all of the senior classes were done and all of the senior teachers knew that their students were mentally done. 

 

_ jon: dont u have church shit _

_ linda: yeah but it starts at 6 and its like 2:30 _

_ jon: is spencer there _

_ dallon: r u trying to bang spencer _

_ jon: I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND _

_ spencer: never stopped ryan ;) _

_ jon: spencer i love you and you are a beautiful man but no i am not going to linda’s house to try and seduce you sorry _

_ spencer: darn. anyway i’m headed to linda’s see u losers there _

 

“My friends are coming over!” Linda called out to wherever David was. She didn’t hear anything in response, so either he was fine with it or he just didn’t hear her. It wasn’t her problem, though, because David could do what he wanted. He was a smart kid, he’d be fine on his own while Linda and her friends hung out in the backyard. 

 

Her dad had been planning to build a pool for Linda and her brothers so that they’d be able to swim at home over the summer, but he didn’t have a lot of spare time. Linda had gotten a hold of the instructions, but it would be a pain in the ass to put together on her own, so she’d gotten her friends to help her out with building it. 

 

Spencer was the first one over, so he and Linda started setting everything out. Jon was next, and Linda and Spencer both made sure to pester him about having a secret crush on Spencer. Naturally, Jon responded by turning the hose on and spraying them both. Linda ducked behind the half finished pool siding, leaving Spencer on his own as she snuck around to try and turn the hose off. 

 

She came back out on the other side, only to immediately get sprayed down. Linda put her hands up, moving forward anyway and trying not to choke on the water. “Jon, you ass, turn it off!”

 

“Never!” Jon said, shaking the hose back and forth. Spencer jumped onto his back, knocking him off balance, and Linda took the distraction as her chance to bolt over and turn the water off. The hose remained in the middle of the yard, limp and noodly amongst the grass. 

 

Linda flipped her hair out of her face, sticking out her tongue. Long hair was a pain in the ass, sometimes, but she wasn't going to cut it off. She liked her hair. It was one of the few feminine things she’d been able to keep about herself. She’d ended up a lot more tomboyish than intended because her dad didn’t always have the money to get Linda seperate clothes from her brothers, especially when she was still getting taller. Linda didn’t mind that, or how people assumed she was tough and boyish because she had four brothers and hung out with only guys (and Ryan Ross), but she still wanted to be seen as a girl. 

 

She was a girl, basically a woman now, and she was figuring out just what that meant. It involved a lot of heavy lifting, because the men who didn’t know her well enough assumed that because she was tall and lean, she couldn’t carry anything over ten pounds. The men who knew her through her dad knew better. Linda was fucking strong, and she had no issues with embarrassing men in front of their peers. 

 

“What the fuck did I miss?” Dallon said as he came around from the back of the house. Linda, Spencer, and Jon had gotten the pool further along, but they were still soaking wet from the hose earlier. Jon was also barefoot, but Jon was usually barefoot if the temperature was over fifty degrees or the location allowed it. Since Linda was making sure Jon didn’t touch a hammer, the situation allowed it. 

 

“Jon won’t confess his undying love for me,” Spencer said. 

 

Jon picked up the hose. “I will do it again, don’t test me.”

 

“I can’t believe I come back every summer for you guys,” Dallon said, and walked over to where Linda was holding up a part of the pool. She directed him to what still needed to be done, and the four of them got back to work, teasing each other as they went. It didn’t take much longer until the pool was finished and the four of them could lay out in the backyard, drinking water and not doing anything. 

 

Jon nudged Linda with his elbow. “How does it feel to be done?”

 

“I’m not done yet,” Linda said. “Graduation’s Friday. After that, we’re all done with high school.”

 

Dallon sat up. “I thought Brendon still had a few more weeks of homeschooling left?”

 

“Maybe?” Linda said. “But his schedule’s weird, so who knows.”

 

“Brendon’s last test thing is the Thursday after we have graduation,” Spencer said. He had his sunglasses on and was staring up at the sky with his hands behind his head. No one was surprised that he knew. Spencer and Brendon were close, close enough that it felt like they were supposed to be dating, even though they still weren’t. Linda was hoping that they’d get their shit together before the end of the summer, so that college wasn’t also filled with endless pining. 

 

“Are we doing anything for that?” Jon asked. “Or are we being nice and waiting until Ryan gets released from their accidental boyfriend in Texas?”

 

“I can’t believe Ryan accidentally started dating someone,” Spencer said. He shrugged. “I don’t have any plans, other than working so that I don’t get stuck dealing with my sisters all summer. We should do something, though, now that we’re all out of school.”

 

“I’m getting married in August,” Dallon said, and the other three all turned to gape at him. There was information that could be dropped like a bomb, and then there was getting married. Unless Dallon was eloping, and had decided to let Linda, Jon, and Spencer know because he was trying to be a nice friend, but Dallon didn’t seem like the kind of guy who eloped. He was more of the traditional wedding with an outdoor ceremony and fairy lights kind of guy. He ran his hand through his hair, messing it up so that it stuck up and out of his face. “It’s kind of last minute, but Breezy and I wanted to make it official while we were still here. We didn’t want to make everyone drive up somewhere just because I got assigned there and couldn’t come home for the wedding.”

 

“That’s awesome,” Jon said, reaching up and pulling Dallon down into a hug. “Congrats, man, when’s the actual date so I can arrive twenty minutes late and make your family hate me forever?”

 

“You have to wear shoes,” Dallon said. 

 

“Ah, fuck,” Jon said into Dallon’s shoulder. Spencer laughed, and Jon hooked his foot over Linda’s legs to kick Spencer in the shin. “Shoes are homophobic, Dal, you know this.”

 

Dallon rolled his eyes and then rolled away from Jon. “You can take them off at the reception if you have to, but we’re getting married in a church and churches have standards.”

 

“Wait, which church?” Spencer asked. 

 

“One you’re not banned from, don’t worry,” Dallon said. “It’s the one Breezy grew up in, actually, and it’s over in Macon, but that’s a lot closer than Virginia.”

 

“They’re putting you in Virginia?” Linda asked, frowning. “That’s way too far away. How’re we going to surprise you and tell your youth kids about all the embarrassing things you did when you were in high school?”

 

Dallon rolled his eyes and flipped her off. “Just for that, I’m asking to get transferred to California. But yeah, we’re going somewhere in Virginia. I find out this Sunday where exactly we’re going, but we don’t have to go there until after the wedding, officially. It’s not the worst place to go. At least it’s not going to be in the backwoods of South Carolina, where only three people have teeth and there’re confederate flags everywhere.”

 

“You mean, like the way it is here?” Spencer asked, raising an eyebrow so that it could be seen over his sunglasses. There’d been plenty of racists and angry Christians in Milledgeville. This wasn’t Atlanta, or even Athens, where there was a chance of diversity. Linda was pretty sure that she, Jon, Spencer, Brendon, and Dallon were the only queer kids in the entire town. It sucked. People were awful. 

 

Dallon shook his head. “It’s worse. I took the middle school mission trip group to a tiny town there once, and… I mean, everyone deserves a house and food and water and all that, but I’d never go back there. Those people were terrifying. There was only one church--Baptist--and there was a lot of fire and brimstone talk from the preacher. He even warned me not to let two kids go off alone together in case they got tempted by the, quote, homosexual demons.”

 

Linda rolled her eyes. “Yes, because whenever I’m alone with another girl, the first thing I think about is getting her possessed by a gay demon.”

 

“It might help your case,” Jon suggested. Naturally, Linda shoved him. Jon ruffled her hair. “You love me.”

 

“No I don’t,” Linda said, lowering her sunglasses down so that she could look at Jon over them. “I’m a lesbian.”

 

“Burned,” Dallon said, quietly. He’d been hanging around middle school kids too much if he was saying  _ burned _ . Dallon was basically a dad at this point, even though none of the kids in the youth program were his. Dallon was just as dorky and awkward and out of touch as any other dad, and if he and Breezy ever had kids, those kids would be embarrassed as hell by their dad. In a good way. 

 

“Update your insults, old man,” Jon said. He reached out with his foot and started poking at Dallon’s shoe, to get it off. Jon had a personal vendetta against shoes. When he’d still been in high school, he’d been sent home multiple times because he didn’t have on any shoes at all. Linda could sympathise; she rarely wore shoes during the summer because it was too hot for them. Jon took it to another level, though, going most of the year barefoot or in only flip flops. Linda wasn’t sure how he did it. She suspected it had something to do with his parents being originally from the north. 

 

Dallon pressed his hand down over Jon’s face, pretending to suffocate him. He looked up at Linda and Spencer, with one eyebrow raised. “So, anyway, I’m getting married, first Saturday in August, you guys might be in the wedding party, Jon won’t because he’s an asshole--”

 

“Can you say asshole anymore?” Spencer asked. “Now that you’re an official church dude and everything.”

 

Dallon rolled his eyes. “Anyway, Linda, since you’re not being ridiculous, you’re now my best man. You get to wear a suit and act like you and I have been best bros since the womb.”

 

“Sweet,” Linda said. “Make Ryan one of the bridesmaids.”

 

“Maybe. Breezy’s in charge of them, so I can’t make Ryan wear a dress,” Dallon said. He took his hand off of Jon’s face and frowned down at Jon before wiping his hand on his hip. “Knowing Ryan, though, they’d probably wear a dress even if they didn’t have to.”

 

“Yeah, Ryan has a secret kink for making straight people uncomfortable,” Linda said. Admittedly, both she and Ryan made straight people uncomfortable. Even before they’d come out as genderqueer, Ryan had always been the kid who showed up in a full face of makeup and strange clothes found in the back corner of a forgotten thrift shop. And Linda, well, she just ruined people’s stereotypes about lesbians. She wasn’t ugly, she didn’t have buzzed hair or an undercut, but she wasn’t on the other end of the spectrum either, all dolled up and in cute little pastel sapphic clothes. Ryan and Linda weren’t easy for straight people to box up into a single label, and that pissed them off. 

 

“Don’t we all, though?” Spencer asked. “Except Dallon, because he’s our token straight person. For representation purposes.”

 

“Yes,” Jon said. “We wouldn’t want the people who avidly watch our lives on a TV screen to feel like straight people weren’t properly represented. That would just be horrible, to look at a show and not be able to see yourself in any of the characters.”

 

“You’re killing me with the sarcasm today, Walker,” Dallon said, slowly. He reached up and nudged his sunglasses up his nose with the knuckle of his middle finger, and then ran his hand through his hair again. He sat up and grabbed his shoes from where they’d all thrown them earlier. “It’s been fun, but I have to go do boring adult shit now. You kids have fun, enjoying your summer and not worrying about the future. I’ll be signing wedding invitations and dying my grey hairs away.”

 

“Aww, poor baby,” Linda said. “It must suck, getting to be an adult.”

 

“In this economy?” Jon said from the ground, raising an eyebrow over his sunglasses. “I’d suck a dick not to be an adult. Adulting sucks and I’m not even a full-time adult yet.”

 

“Jon, you’d suck a dick just to suck a dick,” Spencer said. 

 

“That’s not the point, shush,” Jon said, and made no movement to keep Spencer from talking back. It didn’t matter, because Dallon did have to go do adult stuff, so the four of them all got up and walked around to the front of the house so that Dallon didn’t have to go around alone. There was a weird need to stick together in Linda’s friend group. Most of them (everyone except Dallon) was something other than straight, and they lived in a small town in the south. Being alone, even in the daytime, could be dangerous. 

 

Linda wasn’t alone, though, and her friends were all fine. It was a little lonely, being one of the only not straight kids in the entire town, but Linda had made a group of friends and they’d survived year after year of growing up together. They were solid. It’d take a lot to tear them apart.   
  


* * *

 

 

**Chapter 2**

 

Brendon and Linda were the first to show up at Dallon’s house. It was Saturday, and Brendon had convinced his parents that he, Dallon, and a few other people were going to be going up to the lake for the evening to do some Bible study shit. The reality was that Breezy and a few of her friends were coming down, and that she and Dallon were throwing a party at the lake. Brendon would probably be spending the night at Dallon’s house, since there’d be alcohol there and Brendon’s parents would ground the shit out of him if he came home smelling of beer.

 

Dallon wasn’t home, because he was picking up one of Breezy’s friends who lived in Atlanta. Brendon and Linda were seated in the living room, awkwardly sitting on either end of the couch and not sure what to do with themselves. It was always weird, being at a friend’s house when the friend wasn’t there. Linda stretched her legs out, crossing her feet at the ankle. “So, how’s homeschooling?”

 

“Boring,” Brendon said, bouncing his leg against the couch cushion. “My older siblings are back from college, so there are people everywhere again, but I can’t talk to them when I’m supposed to be studying, and it’s a pain in the ass because it’s not like I study anyway. I can’t focus on stuff. I just want to get out of the house and do stuff with people.”

 

“Hey, at least we’re all going to the lake,” Linda said. “And there’ll be new people there, so you can make friends, maybe even get a date for the summer.”

 

“Eh, I don’t think I’d be interested in anyone there. I’ve kind of got a crush on someone else…” Brendon said. His cheeks were tainted pink, and Linda got the feeling that Brendon’s crush was one of their friends. For everyone’s sake, she hoped it was Spencer. That would make everything work out perfectly. Also, if Brendon did have a crush on Spencer, and the two of them got together, Linda would get to tease Spencer about it for the rest of his life. 

 

She and Ryan had suffered through too many years of third-wheeling with those two. It’d be annoying if they weren’t all such good friends. 

 

Linda wiggled her eyebrows. “Oh? Who is it?”

 

“I’m not telling you,” Brendon said, even though he was still red in the face. He stuck his tongue out, and Linda reached out to flick the tip of his tongue with her finger. Brendon pouted, and put his tongue back in his mouth. He poked at Linda’s calf with his bare foot. “You suck. Who the hell flicks someone’s  _ tongue _ .”

 

“Me,” Linda said. “And yes, before you ask, it is because I’m a lesbian. Everything I do is because I’m a lesbian.”

 

Brendon made a stuck-up face and lifted his chin. “Ugh, gays these days and their tendency to make everything about their sexuality. I used to say I supported them, but they kept shoving their lifestyle in my face for no reason. It was  _ sooo _ annoying.”

 

“Your straight people impression is on point,” Linda said. 

 

“Thanks, I borrowed it from Dallon.”

 

“Hey, Dallon’s a good straight person,” Linda said. She reached out to smack at Brendon’s leg, but he just threw his legs up over his head so that he was on his back and his ass was pointed towards her. Linda made a face and reached up, tilting Brendon’s legs over. He fell sideways, off of the couch, and hit the floor with an undignified screech. 

 

“I… don’t want to know what’s going on,” Spencer said. He was standing in the entrance to the Weekes’ house, sunglasses resting on the top of his head, and holding a tupperware full of brownies. “My mom made food, by the way. I convinced her not to cater everything, since we’re grabbing food on our way out.”

 

“Ooh, can I have one?” Brendon asked, hopping up off of the floor. Linda rolled her eyes as Spencer opened up the box of brownies for Brendon. Brendon was like an adorable, fluffy puppy. It was hard for anyone to say no to him, but it was pretty much impossible for Spencer to deny Brendon anything. Spencer was smitten, and from Linda’s perspective on the couch, Brendon looked pretty smitten too. Linda couldn’t blame him. If she were to go straight for any of her friends, it’d probably be Spencer. He was sweet and charming and funny, and he wasn’t unattractive. Linda was a lesbian, but she wasn’t blind. 

 

“Don’t eat all of them,” Linda said. “Dallon’s bringing friends.”

 

“You mean his fiancee,” Spencer said, wiggling his eyebrows. “Do you think they have weird sex? Dal seems kind of boring, but I bet Breezy’s into weird shit.”

 

“She gave me a vibrator for my birthday,” Linda said. Spencer and Brendon looked surprised, but in different ways. Brendon almost looked scandalised that Linda would have any sex toys. She rolled her eyes. “Oh, what, like you think I’ve been sitting here, girlfriendless, for the past five years and I  _ haven’t _ thought about it.”

 

“No, I just didn’t know you and Breezy were good enough friends that you got each other sex toys for birthday gifts,” Spencer said. “I didn’t even know we had a sex shop.”

 

“We don’t,” Linda said. “It’s in Macon.”

 

“We should go there,” Spencer said. “Since everyone’s eighteen now. We should get Ryan and their boyfriend to come, too. That’d be funny.”

 

“Ryan would either die or scare us all with how much they know about weird sex things,” Linda said. Spencer nodded in agreement, and joined her on the couch. Brendon followed, and Linda scooted over so that he had to sit next to Spencer. It was the little things in life that mattered. 

 

Brendon looked between the two of them. “Okay, don’t call me sheltered for this, but do people really talk about sex this much? Or is this just a gay thing.”

 

“It’s a  _ we’re all super close and we’ve known each other for too long _ thing,” Spencer said. He wasn’t looking at Brendon. Linda thought that the two of them couldn’t be less obvious. Spencer only got awkward about sex stuff when Brendon was around, because he didn't want Brendon to catch on that most of Spencer's sexual interests involved him. 

 

Brendon sighed. “Jeez, I miss out on a lot.”

 

“It's mostly being in a public school,” Linda said. “There are straight people making out in the halls everywhere you go. It gets annoying after a while.”

 

“Linda, you've been annoyed with straight people since you were born,” Spencer said. Linda couldn't argue with that. She didn't hate straight people entirely, because Dallon, her dad, and her brothers were all straight people. They were all way too extra, though, and she was tired of seeing them everywhere. There weren't enough gay people in Milledgeville, or in the surrounding area. Linda couldn’t wait to get off to UGA, where there was an actual LGBT resource centre, and there were enough gay kids there that she wouldn’t feel like she was the only one. 

 

Jon arrived next, wielding a large salad bowl. Linda had no idea what would be in it, but she knew it’d be good. All of her friends had at least one parent who was awesome at cooking, so they never went hungry whenever they all got together to hang out. 

 

Jon put the bowl in the Weekes’ fridge before joining Linda, Brendon, and Spencer on the couch. He sat on the other side of Linda, squishing her up against Spencer, and making him have to move closer to Brendon. The entire friend group knew about Spencer’s crush on Brendon, even if he hadn’t told them. They were all in on it. Spencer and Brendon were the only ones who were still clueless. 

 

“So, did your dad let you borrow the truck, or are we all cramming into Dallon’s?” Jon asked. 

 

“We’re all cramming into my truck, actually. I just bought it last month, but this is the first chance I’ve had to use it on my own,” Linda said, beaming. She’d been saving for a truck of her own ever since she started working at sixteen. She wanted a truck just like her dad’s, because she’d grown up with it and she’d learned to drive with it, and it made her feel at home. She wanted some connection back to Milledgeville when she was up in Athens.

 

Jon’s eyes widened. “Oh shit, seriously? What’s it look like?”

 

“Grey, Chevy, it’s an ‘08 model but it runs well off-road,” Linda said. “That’s all I cared about. It’s also got a huge ass bed, so we won’t have any problem fitting everyone in it.”

 

“What if Dallon brings back a bunch of Breezy’s friends?” Brendon asked. “I know he said he was only bringing a few, but what if he was lying? What if there are like, six of them?”

 

“I doubt Dallon would bring down six random people without telling us,” Jon said. “He knows better. At most, it’ll be two extra people. Probably Breezy’s maid of honour and then someone else that Dallon thinks we’d like.”

 

“He has good taste in people,” Spencer said. “After all, he’s marrying Breezy, and she’s awesome.”

 

Spencer had a good point. Breezy was awesome, and very accepting of Dallon’s group of friends. She’d mentioned, at one point, that she didn’t consider herself straight either, but Linda didn’t know how much Breezy had meant it. A lot of people experimented in college. Linda wasn’t going to just write off Breezy’s past as being a phase, but she was still a little wary. There’d been two girls in high school who had tried to use Linda as their lesbian experiment. It hadn’t gone over well. 

 

The four of them ended up tangled up in each other on the couch, because none of them knew how to sit properly, and since their shoes were all off and by the front door, there was nothing to worry about. Dallon’s mom came by and told them that Dallon was on his way back, and that he was supposed to arrive soon. She brought them all lemonade, and they were careful not to spill it anywhere. It reminded Linda vaguely of high school Youth Group, where all the girls would go to one person’s house, and all the guys would go somewhere else. Sometimes they’d switch it up, and sort people by grade, but usually the church separated people by gender instead. 

 

It was annoying, though, since Linda’s only church friends were both guys and one of them was a youth leader. She didn’t get along very well with the other high school girls. It was like they could smell something was different about her, and they wouldn’t let her forget it, even when they were all smiling and talking about how Jesus loved everyone equally. 

 

Linda hoped that Dallon would be the kind of youth pastor who taught his youth group about important shit, like being gay in a Christian home, or how to deal with homophobic people. Linda was tired of seeing gay kids feel like they had to choose between God and their identity. They shouldn’t have to choose, because there was nothing wrong with being gay. Linda’s dad had instilled that concept into her and her brothers from a young age, even before Linda told her dad that she was a lesbian. Her dad didn’t want any of his kids to grow up close-minded, and Linda was thankful for that. She just wished the rest of the world could see things the same way. 

 

“You’re awfully quiet,” Spencer said, nudging Linda with his elbow. “What’s up?”

 

“Just thinking about shit,” Linda said. “Like how much it sucks being gay and Christian sometimes.”

 

“Oh man, I feel that,” Brendon said. Linda, Jon, and Spencer all sat up. Brendon had never come out to them, but Linda and the others had all had a feeling that he wasn’t straight. Brendon had a lot of internalised hatred to work through, considering what his parents believed and how backwards they could be. Linda wasn’t surprised that he was still deep in the closet, assuming she and her friends were right and Brendon wasn’t straight. 

 

Brendon’s eyes were wide, as though he realised what he’d just implied. He laughed, awkwardly, his face turning red. “Uh, so, I guess this is me coming out? Hi guys, I’m gay. I’m one of you now.”

 

“Welcome to the club,” Jon said, reaching over Linda and Spencer to give Brendon a high-five. “If you ever need anything, I have a spare mattress and Linda has her dad.”

 

“Don’t sell my dad out as a bodyguard,” Linda said. 

 

“He offered to drive us all up to Atlanta pride last fall, remember? I think he’s more than willing to become someone’s straight ally bodyguard,” Jon said. 

 

Linda rolled her eyes. Jon was right, of course. Her dad was willing to do whatever his kids needed to keep them safe. They hadn’t gone up to pride last year, because Ryan and Jon’s college schedules hadn’t allowed for it, and Spencer had had to fill in for a shift at Dairy Queen. It sucked, but they were planning to try again this year, since they’d all be at college together, and Linda would have her truck. 

 

“If you guys are going to pride this year, can I come with you?” Brendon asked. He looked way more nervous than he needed to be.

 

Spencer nodded eagerly. “Yeah, dude, of course. You’d be invited no matter what. You’re our friend.”

 

“My mom and dad can’t know, though,” Brendon said. 

 

Jon laughed. “Bren, you’re gonna be in college. Your parents won’t know shit about what you’re doing unless you tell them yourself. And don’t worry about having a sibling there to tattle on you; my sister was two years above me and we never saw each other on campus. You don’t have anything to worry about once the summer is over.”

 

“Well, I might have a shitty roommate,” Brendon said. Linda hadn’t even thought about getting a roommate. Part of her hoped that Ryan would stay on campus next year and apply for a girl’s room, and that she could just room with them so that she didn’t have to deal with someone she didn’t know. She’d grown up surrounded by guys, so she had no idea how to live with another girl. She didn’t know if there were certain rules she’d have to follow, or if her roommate would get grossed out if she found out she was rooming with a lesbian. There were too many fears. Linda wanted to be safe and room with Ryan, if she couldn’t request a guy for a roommate. 

 

“Ignore them and come hang out in my dorm,” Jon said. “I’m going to be an RA next year, so I’ll have a single anyway. My freshmen are going to love you, even if your roommate doesn’t.”

 

“And if he doesn’t, then that’s his loss,” Spencer said, reaching up and ruffling Brendon’s hair in a way that was not at all heterosexual. “You’re a cool guy, Brendon. Anyone would be lucky to have you as a roommate.”

 

“We should just get a house together and not have to deal with roommates,” Brendon said. He had a point, but Linda had already promised her dad that she’d live on campus for as long as she could. It was cheaper that way, and it meant less stress for the both of them. Her dad was already helping her two older brothers cover their college tuition, and hers was going to cost more just because the University of Georgia was a fancy school where the rich Atlanta people sent their kids to join a sorority and major in business and financing. 

 

Linda hated capitalism sometimes. She just wanted an education, so that she could go into politics and journalism and work with a women’s rights campaign. She wanted to get to march on the streets of Washington, carrying the banner of her people and demanding they get treated equally. Linda wanted to be a part of the change, and she knew that she could do it without a fancy diploma, but more people would listen to her if she had it. 

 

Linda heard the garage door, alerting her and her friends that Dallon was back with Breezy and her friends. All four of them sat up, eager to see who the new member(s) of their group would be for the night, and to see if Breezy was wearing a ring. Linda hoped she was. She was a feminist, but she still loved the traditional wedding shit, including rings and white dresses and getting married in a tiny church somewhere. She couldn’t wait to get to do that with her future wife. It was going to be awesome. 

 

She could hear the people talking before Dallon opened the door that led to the garage, and she could hear three distinct voices. One was significantly lower than the other two, and that was Dallon’s. She could recognise Breezy’s as well, because she’d heard her talk enough before. The third was a mystery, but it was high pitched and sounded pretty. Linda craned her neck around Jon to try and get a better peek at the door. 

 

The door swung open and Breezy came through first. She was wearing cutoffs and a BB8 tank top, and she didn’t bother to take off her high tops before coming over to hug everyone. Linda was so wrapped up in saying hi to Breezy (she’d missed the woman, seriously) that she almost missed Breezy’s friend. As soon as Breezy turned to hug Spencer, though, Linda’s attention returned to the door. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open, and she missed the couch, stumbling against the cushions. 

 

Breezy’s friend was fucking stunning. She had big blue eyes and a blinding smile, and she brought her hand up to her face when she giggled. Her nails were trimmed short and painted a seafoam green, and her wavy dyed black hair fell over one shoulder. She looked like a model, and someone who had just gotten back from the beach. She was, by far, the hottest girl Linda had ever laid eyes on, and to make matters worse, her shorts were even shorter than Breezy’s, and the sleeve holes of her top hung low enough that Linda could get a full view of the bikini top she was wearing underneath. 

 

Linda was so fucked. 

  
  


* * *

 

**Chapter 3**

 

“You think she’s hot,” was the first thing Spencer said to her as soon as he and Linda were out of everyone’s earshot. They hadn’t even left for the lake yet, but Spencer and Linda were outside rearranging the interior of Linda’s truck so that she could fit seven people and the food without anyone falling out. 

 

Linda rolled her eyes. “And? I’m allowed to think girls are hot. I’m gay, remember?”

 

“Yeah, but you think she’s really hot,” Spencer said, because he could be annoying at times. Linda loved the guy to death, but she was really glad he wasn’t one of her brothers. She didn’t think she could put up with him all the time. Then again, he probably thought the same about her, given that she was constantly pestering him about his crush on Brendon, so maybe this was fair. 

 

“You think Brendon’s really hot, but I don’t see you doing anything about it,” Linda said, hoping that would shut him up. She wanted to talk about Sarah--Breezy had introduced her as a longtime family friend--with someone, but not this way. Mostly, she wanted to shove her face in a pillow and scream for a bit, because it wasn’t fair. Of course one of Breezy’s bride’s maids was the most attractive woman in the world, and of course Linda was going to be another one of Breezy’s bride’s maids. The world hated her. The world was homophobic because it was making Linda feel sexually frustrated. 

 

“Okay, the thing with me and Brendon is way different from you and Sarah,” Spencer said. 

 

Linda turned around and put a hand on her hip. “Oh, I can’t wait to see how you rationalise this one.”

 

“Brendon and I have been friends since we were tiny,” Spencer said. “If he didn’t like me, it would make things awkward, and potentially ruin the great friend group we’ve got going on. We’re like the only gay kids in this town, and if I fuck it up with my feelings, I don’t want to cause the collapse of the group. And if Brendon does like me? What then? What are the chances of us actually making it as a couple? We’re barely out of high school, Brendon’s never had anything close to a relationship, and on top of that, I’m transgender. I’m not an easy person to love, Linda.”

 

“Don’t say shit like that. Seriously. You being trans has nothing to do with your worthiness,” Linda said. “And if Brendon can’t handle you being transgender, then he doesn’t deserve you. You deserve someone who is going to love you no matter what. I hope it’s Brendon, because you two get along well and I believe in the two of you, but if it’s not? I’ll live, because I’d rather you be happy with someone who isn’t Brendon, then try to stick around to make your friends feel good about their match-making skills.”

 

Spencer smiled, ducking his head so that Linda couldn't see him blushing. She reached over the side of the truck and messed up his hair. Spencer swatted her hands away. “Fuck off.”

 

“Y’all are adorable,” a voice said from behind them. Linda and Spencer turned around to see Sarah standing a few feet away, by the mailbox. She had the tub of cookies under her arm, and she was still stunning. Linda stared at her, and Spencer stared at Linda. Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Oh, sorry, did I interrupt something? Should I go back inside?”

 

“No, no, you're fine,” Spencer said, because he wasn't attracted to girls and so he could still function as a person. He motioned between himself and Linda. “We're not… we're not anything. We're just friends.”

 

Sarah's smile widened. She looked like she was glowing, and her cheekbones were so… perky. She was beautiful. Linda managed to pull her gaze away from Sarah long enough to get out of the truck and say something about checking to make sure that they weren’t leaving anything behind. The truth was that Linda couldn’t be around Sarah for very long. Sarah was like the sun, and Linda wasn’t wearing any sunglasses.

 

She’d actually left her sunglasses on the table next to the Weekes’ couch, which only added to the metaphor. Linda didn’t know what to do with attractive girls. She was worried that Sarah was straight, and that she’d think Linda was being creepy, and Linda didn’t want that. She thought Sarah was hot, sure, but she wouldn’t let that stop her from being a good fucking person. Sarah didn’t owe her anything, and if Sarah was straight, Linda would respect that and just… not interact with her as much. 

 

And if she was straight, then Linda could make sure they didn’t get too friendly before the wedding, and then she wouldn’t need a reason to not keep in touch. Considering they were both from the south, and hospitality was expected, it probably wouldn’t happen, but Linda could dream. 

 

She hoped Sarah wasn’t straight, though, because that would make the next few months so much easier. Linda wouldn’t have to watch herself as much. 

 

* * *

 

Linda, Spencer, and Brendon were sitting in the front of the truck, with Spencer in the middle and Brendon smushed between him and the window. The other four were in the back, with Sarah and Breezy sitting on the guys’ laps. All of their stuff was back in the bed of the truck, kept safe under a tarp. Cassie was going to join up with them at the lake, since she lived north of it and they were all cramped into Linda’s truck as it was. The radio was blaring Jason Aldean, Linda had the windows rolled down, and it wasn’t horrifically humid. 

 

Spencer was caught between the gear shift and sitting on Brendon’s lap. Brendon was either unaware of how close he and Spencer were, or he was trying to ignore it, because he was singing along loudly to the music. He had his head half out of the window, and his hair was blowing in the wind. Linda glanced over at Spencer and wiggled her eyebrows. 

 

Spencer flipped her off because she was driving and he didn’t want them to get into an accident. 

 

“Did I miss something?” Breezy asked. 

 

“No, Spencer and Linda can just communicate without saying anything,” Dallon said. “Which is unfair to the rest of us, because we’re all friends here, and they shouldn’t be keeping things from the rest of the group.”

 

“Ryan’s worse,” Jon said. “I swear, that fucker doesn’t ever say anything to Spence. They just look at him and boom, Spencer knows  _ exactly _ what’s going on in Ryan’s head.”

 

“Someone has to,” Linda said. 

 

“Hey, leave Ryan alone,” Brendon said, pulling his head back into the car. “They’re not even here to defend themself.”

 

“Ryan knows they're being roasted, don’t worry,” Spencer said. 

 

Jon pointed around Sarah to Spencer. “See? Sixth sense. Those two are fucking weird.”

 

“It’s not that,” Spencer said, leaning back to flip Jon off. “We’re just always roasting Ryan. They’re too easy to make fun of, really. Fucking smartass emo.”

 

“Says the guy who begged his parents to buy him Green Day tickets last March,” Linda said, because she remembered that stressful month of her life. There’d been a lot of frantic late night phone calls, with Spencer whispering through the phone that the tickets were all selling out and that he was going to have to go to a show somewhere else and have to hitch-hike up there. He’d gotten a ticket eventually, but he’d been far too invested in the whole thing. 

 

“Shut up, Green Day is good,” Spencer said. 

 

“They’re more punk than emo,” Dallon said. “Blood on the Dance Floor is emo.”

 

“Oh, God, don’t remind me,” Sarah said. She buried her face in her hands. “I had the  _ worst _ scene phase in middle school. I thought I was going to marry Dahvie Vanity.”

 

“Ew, gross,” Spencer said. Linda had no idea who they were talking about, but she agreed. 

 

Finally, the road turned to gravel, and Linda’s headlights bounced and flashed onto the lake. She pulled up as close as the could and parked the truck, turning off of the lights and rolling the windows up. Everyone piled out, grabbing blankets and food and something to start the fire with. Jon and Linda built the fire, Dallon dug out the grill from all of their shit, and the other four messed around while they waited for everything to finish. 

 

“How do people like their hotdogs?” Dallon asked, ripping open a pack. The fire was on, blazing under the grill they’d fitted over the pit. The sun was still up, but it was starting to get dark and the world was changing colours. 

 

Brendon dropped down next to Dallon and stole a hotdog bun from the package. “Thick and in my mouth.”

 

“Shut the fuck up,” Jon said. “There are tofu dogs in the cooler, too, if you want some.”

 

“Are they thick?” Brendon asked with a mouthful of bread. 

 

Linda pointed a finger at him. “You’re never allowed to act innocent when Spence and I start talking about sex now. You just proved you’re as dirty as the rest of us.”

 

“Didn’t you just graduate high school?” Sarah asked Brendon. She and Brendon were both having tofu dogs even though Sarah wasn’t vegetarian. She was from the city, and didn’t understand that hotdogs weren’t really made of cats. “How’re you still innocent?”

 

“Homeschooling. And my parents are really religious,” Brendon said. He pointed the rest of his bun at Dallon and Breezy. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, obviously. Just, teach your kids about the birds and the bees. Otherwise they’ll end up being a repressed kinky freak like me.”

 

“Wow, Brendon, way to open up right in front of the new girl,” Spencer said. Linda looked up at him in time to see that his cheeks were bright red. Probably thinking about what kinks Brendon had, and how he’d figured them out. 

 

Cassie showed up while they were making hotdogs, and settled herself in on Jon’s lap. She grabbed the bottle of ketchup from Linda and shook it for a second. “Did I miss anything important, or are y’all still being boring.”

 

“Brendon almost confessed that he has a thing for getting whipped,” Jon said. He winked, but it was at Spencer, not Brendon. Spencer was staring into the fire as though it held all the secrets of the universe, and didn’t see Jon. Jon shrugged and pulled Cassie closer. He popped open the tab of his Coke. “Other than that? We’ve been pretty boring. We were waiting on the life of the party to show up.”

 

“Ryan’s in Texas,” she said. 

 

Jon pressed his can to her arm. “I was talking about you, babe.”

 

“I did bring the music,” Cassie said. 

 

Sarah perked up, sitting up on her heels. “Music? What kind?”

 

“Any kind,” Cassie said. “I’m this group’s dealer when it comes to music. I’ve got all kinds, and they don’t have to pray that the good stations make it all the way out here. I’ve got vinyl, CDs, you name it.”

 

“Well, put something on,” Sarah said. “I wanna dance.”

 

“I thought we were swimming?” Brendon said, pouting. He just wanted an excuse to get naked. Brendon was weird about clothes. He liked them better off. “I wanted to swim.”

 

“Isn’t there a thirty minute rule, where you can’t swim for thirty minutes after eating or you’ll get cramps?” Breezy asked, raising an eyebrow. “Or is that something else people made up to make life boring.”

 

“It’s not real,” Cassie said. “And we should probably swim now, before it gets too dark out.”

 

“Hell yeah!” Brendon said. He set his plated down and ripped his shirt off. Dallon reached out and snatched it before Brendon could throw it up in the air. Knowing Brendon, it would end up in the fire, and then they’d have to explain to Brendon’s parents how he’d managed to lose a shirt at a Bible study group. Brendon rolled his eyes at Dallon and fell back so that he could take his shorts off. He stood up, in nothing but his bright green swim trunks, and grinned. “Last one in’s a burned marshmallow.”

 

“Joke’s on you, I like burnt marshmallows!” Jon shouted after him. He and Cassie got up and started stripping down to their suits anyway, and followed Brendon out to the lake. 

 

Linda looked across the fire to Dallon, Breezy, Sarah, and Spencer. “So, anyone staying back to make sure the fire doesn’t kill anyone?”

 

“We’ll be fine,” Dallon said. “It’s contained.”

 

“When we’re arrested for arson, I’m holding you to that,” Linda said, and took off her shirt. She was wearing a one piece, because bikinis were a pain in the ass to deal with, especially when she was going to be swimming with a bunch of rowdy boys. It didn’t matter that none of them cared if her boob slipped out. Linda didn’t want to flash people, accidentally or otherwise. Her boobs were her own to show. 

 

She kicked off her shorts and her sneakers, and bolted across the grass over to the little pier that went out into the lake. Linda screeched out a “on your above!” and leapt into the air, curling up into a cannonball and slamming into the water. It was only about seven feet deep here, so she came up quickly and was immediately pushed down again by Brendon and Jon. Linda grabbed onto one of the boy’s arms and pulled them down with her, twisting them around so that her thighs were above their waist. 

 

Linda came up with hair covering her face, sputtering and laughing at Brendon, who she was not on top of. Jon pulled her down again and shot up, knocking Linda off-balance and off of his shoulders. 

 

“I could have died,” Jon said, dramatically. 

 

“But you didn’t,” Linda said.

 

Brendon swam back over to the end of the pier and pulled himself up out of the water enough that he could see down to the fire. “Guys, come on!”

 

Someone shouted something back, but Linda couldn’t hear what it was. She swam over to Brendon, pulling herself up beside him. Dallon and Breezy were standing up and starting to strip down, and Sarah was trying to pull Spencer up. Spencer had a waterproof binder, and Linda was pretty sure he’d remembered to wear it. If he wasn’t wearing it, though, then she didn’t want him getting into the water. It sucked, but sometimes Spencer had to sit out when they went swimming. 

 

Dallon grabbed Breezy, and started running up towards the edge of the lake. Breezy’s feet were swinging in the air, and she had her arms around his neck, but she was laughing and grinning as she and Dallon came down the pier. Brendon grabbed Linda’s shoulder and pushed her down so that she wouldn’t accidentally get hit by Dallon when he jumped in. Her hands scraped against the wood, and she swore under the water, pressing her palms against her thighs to stifle the pain. Linda kicked up, shaking her head as she resurfaced. 

 

Brendon was floating beside her, with his bangs slicked down over his forehead. “Sorry. Just didn’t want you to get kicked in the face.”

 

Linda shrugged. “It’s cool. I’ve got a high pain tolerance, anyway.”

 

“Yeah, like that one time you twisted your knee and wouldn’t let Dallon or the youth pastor take you to the clinic?” Brendon asked, raising an eyebrow. She could tell that his arms were folded in mock disappointment under the water. “And then when your dad actually did take you, you had like a torn ligament or something?”

 

“I was fine,” Linda said, even though that had been the most painful time in her life. She felt like she had to be tough, sometimes, because she was the only girl in her family. Her dad and her brothers would never look down on her for being vulnerable, but the rest of the town would. Hell, she’d been the most qualified applicant at the auto shop she worked for, but until her dad went in and vouched for her, the owners had laughed her out of the interview room. All because she was a girl. 

 

Brendon poked his head up over the pier again. His eyes widened. “They’re coming.”

 

“They?” Linda asked. 

 

“Spencer and Sarah,” Brendon said, looking over his shoulder at Linda. “When did Spencer get hot?”

 

Linda pressed a hand to her face while still treading water. “Brendon. I am  _ entirely _ gay. How would I know if Spencer was hot or not? I don’t even like guys, let alone look at them.”

 

“You’re looking at me now,” Brendon said. He opened his mouth to say something else, but at that moment Sarah and Spencer came bounding down the pier and into the water. Brendon clamped his mouth shut, his wide brown eyes following Spencer’s movement and he leapt over their heads and into the water. Sarah was right behind him, with her jet black hair up in a ponytail and her arms spread out in glee. She had gorgeous legs. 

 

Spencer came up first, flinging his hair back so that it formed a wet mohawk. His gaze lingered on Brendon for a long and obvious moment before he dropped onto his back and started kicking over to the others. 

 

When Sarah stood up, shaking her ponytail back from her shoulders, it was as though the whole world was working together for her. The sky had turned a soothing golden colour, with the setting sun tinting Sarah’s skin a warm peach. The water was glistening, like glitter, highlighting her body. She looked like a siren, the subject of a painting so priceless it had to be kept behind tempered glass and protected by twin security guards. The black and white stripes of her bikini were simple, not in contrast with the rest of her. Sarah opened her eyes, soft blue against the evening golds, and smiled at Linda. “Wanna go see if we can sneak up on the others?”

 

“Yeah, of course,” Linda breathed out. She wasn’t sure if she still had lungs, or if Sarah had stolen those too, along with her heart. Linda was completely useless when it came to pretty girls, it turned out. She managed a wobbly smile of her own. “I’d love to.”

 

 

 

* * *

**Chapter 4**

 

It was dark now, and the eight of them were circled around the fire, roasting marshmallows and retelling embarrassing stories of their childhood. Brendon and Spencer were sharing a blanket, but ignoring any implications that came from it. Breezy and Sarah were under another, and Cassie was under the third. Jon, Dallon, and Linda were all acting like stubborn, tough people and refusing to accept that they were also damp and a little chilled now that the sun was gone. 

 

“Oh, shit,” Cassie said, jerking her marshmallow out of the fire as it burst into flames. Jon laughed and sat up, quickly blowing it out. Cassie offered it to him. “You can have this one, since you like them roasted.”

 

“He likes them  _ blazed _ , actually,” Dallon said. 

 

“Is it legal for youth pastors to make weed jokes?” Brendon asked, pulling the blanket closer around his shoulders. “Asking for a friend.”

 

“Shut up, I’m a cool youth pastor,” Dallon said. He pulled his marshmallow back and inspected it, before getting up and heading over to the back of Linda’s truck to dress it up as a s’more. 

 

Linda snorted, and turned her marshmallow over. She liked roasting her marshmallows over the hot coals, because she didn’t have to worry about them accidentally catching on fire. The coals also lit up the marshmallow, and Linda could watch it get brown and pull it back or turn it over before it got too dark. It was an awesome method, but she wasn’t going to share it, because she didn’t want all of her friends hogging the coals. 

 

“Fuck!” Brendon shouted suddenly, breaking the calmness of the night. Linda heard Dallon echo Brendon’s statement, and she looked over her shoulder to see that he’d dropped a bar of chocolate on the ground. She turned back around to Brendon to see him poking sadly at the base of the fire as Spencer patted his back and Breezy and Sarah stifled laughter. 

 

Jon leaned over around Cassie. “Did you drop the whole thing?”

 

“I don’t do this a lot, leave me alone,” Brendon whined, pouting. Linda started laughing, because of course Brendon would lose his marshmallow. She pulled her own out, and joined Dallon at the back of the truck. Linda made herself a s’more and grabbed a fresh marshmallow before following Dallon back to the circle. She didn't sit down, though, and instead walked around to Brendon and presented the fresh marshmallow to him. Brendon looked up at her with wide eyes. He pressed his hand to his chest. “For me? You shouldn’t have.”

 

“Stop enabling him; we don’t have enough marshmallows for that,” Breezy said. 

 

“We’ve got like five more bags in the truck,” Spencer responded. He still had his hand on Brendon’s shoulder. Brendon popped the marshmallow into his mouth, and neither boy mentioned it. 

 

Linda went back around to her seat and dropped down into it. She crossed her feet at the ankles and moved her damp hair away from her face. “I’m a professional enabler. It’s what I do.”

 

She looked over across the fire and caught Sarah's eye. Sarah was smiling at her, looking amused, and Linda quickly looked back down at her s’more because she didn't want to get caught staring. She didn't want Sarah to think that she was a creepy lesbian, just that she was a lesbian. And maybe not even that, because this was the south and there was a huge chance that Sarah would be homophobic and lash out at Linda and her friends if she found out that most of them were gay. 

 

Jon grabbed the wireless radio from the backseat of the truck and turned it on when the night got too quiet and everyone was absorbed in the fire and their marshmallows. Brendon started singing along to the music as soon as it came on. He was a singer at heart, and even though his parents only allowed him to listen to Christian music, he still knew all the words. Ryan had been sneaking him CD tapes for years now. 

 

Brendon shook off his blanket, dropping it down onto Spencer's shoulder, and jumped up. He was still singing, belting out Carrie Underwood like he was on America's Got Talent and was in it to win. Breezy jumped up too, dancing around over to Brendon and looping her arm around his shoulders as the two of them sang about killing ex boyfriends. 

 

Linda turned to Dallon and tapped his shoulder with the neck of her Coke bottle. “She's not getting any inspiration from you, is she?”

 

“Nope, I'd be an idiot to cheat on her,” Dallon said. He had this lovestruck little look on his face that made Linda believe that straight people really could find true love. 

 

The song faded out and Linda moved over to steal Brendon's side of the blanket. Spencer lifted it up for her and Linda slid in, bumping her knee against his. “Cozy?”

 

“Yeah,” Spencer said. He leaned in and whispered, “but it was better with Brendon, no offense.”

 

Linda rolled her eyes. “Y’all are hopeless, really.”

 

“Shut up, I'm better than you,” Spencer said, and Linda couldn't really argue with that. She'd barely talked to Sarah all night, out of fear of embarrassing herself. Linda wanted Sarah to be impressed with her, except Linda wasn't very impressive and she knew it wouldn't take Sarah long to realise that. 

 

“Sarah, come on!” Breezy shouted. Cassie had joined her and Brendon in dancing and singing to the radio music, but Sarah was still by the fire. Breezy danced around, pausing to dip down and kiss Dallon on the nose. “Dance with us; don't be such a city girl.”

 

“I am a city girl, though,” Sarah said. She extended her hand and let Breezy pull her up anyway. Behind them, Brendon picked Cassie up and swung her around like they were in an old movie. 

 

Breezy flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Only on your ma’s side, now come on. Let's show these boys how we do it in Macon.”

 

“You're not gonna make Linda dance?” Sarah asked, looking back over her shoulder and winking at Linda. Linda awkwardly waved back, and Spencer dropped his face into his hands out of secondhand embarrassment. Sarah was still smiling at Linda though, like she hadn't realised how much of a dork Linda was. “Or is she one of the guys?”

 

“Linda bends to the will of no man,” Dallon said. 

 

Jon added, “or woman.”

 

“Or anyone, really,” Spencer said, because Ryan wasn't there to defend non binary people and someone had to do it. Ryan and Spencer were the only trans people that Linda knew of in Milledgeville, and they protected the hell out of each other. The south didn't like gay people, and it sure as hell didn't like trans people, which meant that Spencer and Ryan had had to grow up even faster than Linda, Jon, and Brendon, and that the two of them shared a bond like nobody else Linda knew. She didn't envy them; she knew it was made out of necessity and not out of malice towards her or any of their other friends. 

 

Sarah motioned for Linda to come over. “Well, she should at least consider it. No one's gonna judge you.”

 

“I'm good where I am, thanks,” Linda blurted out. She was afraid to get too close. She didn't want to panic in front of Sarah, or do anything really gay and have Sarah flip out on her. It was safer to stay over on the far side of the fire with Spencer.

 

Sarah shrugged. “Your loss.”

 

She jumped up beside Brendon, shimmying to the music. Brendon danced with her, moving his hips like he was one of the girls. Linda would have ribbed Spencer for staring if she wasn't also watching Sarah, enthralled by the girl’s movements. Sarah was so fluid, so graceful. Her body moved like waves against the shore, back and forth, and her hair shone in the fire, turning golden in the dark night. 

 

Spencer elbowed her. “That's gay, Linda.”

 

“Shut the fuck up, I wasn't doing anything,” she hissed back, hoping that the music was loud enough to cover their comments. 

 

Spencer raised his eyebrows. “And maybe that's the problem. Come on, you've barely talked to her. What if she thinks you're just a giant asshole?”

 

Linda frowned. “I don't want that.”

 

“Then go dance with her,” Spencer said. “What's the worst that could happen?”

 

Linda could think of a thousand things, including falling into the fire pit or elbowing Sarah in the face and accidentally breaking her nose. She didn't say any of those, because she didn't want to give the universe any ideas, and instead got up and walked over. Cassie pulled her in first, grabbing Linda's hands and swinging them around. 

 

Linda tilted her head back, laughing as Breezy and Brendon broke into the chorus. Brendon had given up trying to sound good and was now putting on the most ridiculous hick accent he could manage. It wasn't much of a change, considering they all sounded pretty damn country. Ryan was the only one who sounded like they weren't from around here, but again, Ryan wasn't here to speak for themself. 

 

Brendon pretended to dip Cassie, and that got Jon to get up and join them, dipping Brendon himself before turning his attention to his girlfriend. Sarah brought her hand up to her mouth, hiding a smile, and turned her gaze to Linda. Linda tripped a little over a branch, but caught herself before she could cause a real disaster. Sarah threw her hands in the air. “All y'all are so funny; how'd y’all meet each other?”

 

“School, church, the usual,” Linda said. She didn't mention that, other than Dallon, everyone in their central group of friends was really gay, and that most of their friendship came from that. Gay people tended to bond with each other. It was nice knowing they weren't all alone in the heterosexual world. 

 

Linda pushed her hair out of her face. “How'd you meet Breezy?”

 

“Her grandparents and my grandparents are all friends and we ended up spending a lot of Thursday night line dance lessons together,” Sarah said, smiling. Linda really liked her smile. “I know this has nothing to do with anything, but you have the nicest hair. Is it naturally that blonde?”

 

“Just in the summer,” Linda said. Was this what straight girls talked about with each other? Linda didn't know shit about hair care. She just used her dad's and her brother's Old Spice shampoo. “It's more brownish in the winter, when there's not as much sun.”

 

“I like it,” Sarah said. “It looks so soft. Not right now, since it's wet, but before we went swimming. You could be a model, you know. You're tall and you've got the body and pretty hair and everything.”

 

“I wouldn't make a good model,” Linda said, laughing a little. She was too gangly. Her chest was nearly flat, even at eighteen, and she hated the way her chin looked. Cleft chins looked cool on guys. It didn't work on Linda, though. 

 

“You totally would,” Sarah said, her eyes widening. “But it's fine if you don't want to. I'm not trying to make you do anything.”

 

“You’d make a great model, too, if you wanted,” Linda said, because she had no idea what else to say. It was too hard to talk to girls. They had a strange code that Linda had never picked up, either because she was gay or because all of her friends, sans Ryan, were guys. Linda didn’t know how frequently she was supposed to compliment, or laugh, or whatever. She was flailing, hard. 

 

“I’m too short,” Sarah said. 

 

Linda frowned. “There’s a height limit?”

 

“For most places, yeah. Everyone wants super tall, super skinny girls to be their models. No one thinks about how few women actually look like that in real life,” Sarah said. She rolled her eyes. “It’s stupid, honestly. You’re lucky, you probably never have any issues finding clothes that fit.”

 

“You’d be surprised,” Linda said. Most of her clothes were guy clothes anyway. Men’s clothing was broader in the shoulders than Linda was, and she had to wear a lot of belts because men’s jeans didn’t come in at the hips where Linda needed them too. It’d been a while since she went shopping for clothes, anyway. She had other ways to spend her time, and it wasn’t as though she needed new clothes. 

 

By that point, Sarah and Linda had danced off away from the others. They were still near the fire, but there was some distance between them and everybody else. Sarah looked over her shoulder to where Jon was trying to drag Spencer over towards the radio, and then back at Linda. She smiled. “I know we’ve just met, but you seem cool, and I’d love to get to talk to you more. Do you wanna grab lunch or something, later this week?”

 

“Well, my graduation is on Saturday, but I know there’re a bunch of parties after it,” Linda said. “Wanna meet up there? Spencer’s mom’ll probably host one.”

 

Sarah shrugged. “Sounds okay. Can I get your number, though? So we can set a date for later?”

 

“Yeah, sure, totally… my phone’s in the truck?” Linda said, stumbling a little over her words. It was for something completely innocent, but still. A hot girl was asking for her number. A hot girl wanted to hang out with her, and get lunch. Linda bit her lip to contain her smile. This was awesome.

  
  


* * *

**Chapter 5**

 

It was always hot under the hood of a car, but Linda never minded it. She felt at home here, in the shop, with the classic rock station playing in the background and the other guys yelling about shit around her. Her hair was back in a bun and there was a wrench pressed between her and the car. It was digging into her hip a little, but Linda was so absorbed in what she was doing that she barely noticed it. She was going to school for psychology because her dad wanted all of his kids to have a chance at a better life than the one he’d given them, but Linda was happy with being a mechanic. 

 

Her dad had done fine as a parent, as far as Linda was concerned. Sure, she and her brothers had second or third hand clothes and Christmas mostly consisted of handmade cards and pancakes on the camp stove, but it was still good. Her dad had invested where it mattered, and now he was going to have three of his five kids in college, and one who’d be graduating with a job waiting for him in the winter. He was doing fine. 

 

“Oh, damn,” Linda heard one of the guys say. Another one whistled. Linda rolled her eyes, hoping they were gawking over a car and not a woman. She was the only woman who worked here, other than the receptionist, and she was also the only one who wasn’t straight. It was tiring, sometimes, being the only lesbian in a field of straight, cis men. 

 

Linda wheeled herself back out from under the car. If it was a woman they were gawking at, Linda would put a stop to it. She’d proven last summer that she knew her way around a car, and she’d also proven that she didn’t put up with sexist bullshit. 

 

The car was a baby blue Prius, was too clean to be from around here, and the woman climbing out of it had black hair tossed seamlessly over her shoulder. She stood up and shook her hair out before pushing her sunglasses up onto her forehead. Naturally, it was Breezy’s friend Sarah. Linda hadn’t expected to see her on her own, especially since Breezy lived over in Macon, and presumably, that was where Sarah lived too. Linda was wrong, though, and now she had no other option than to smile and wave like an idiot when Sarah noticed her. 

 

“Yall know each other?” one of the guys--Pete--asked. 

 

Linda nodded. “Yeah, she’s a friend of my friend who’s getting married. It’s like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon or something.”

 

“So, do you think you could get me her number?” Pete asked, arching an eyebrow. “She’s hot.”

 

“No,” Linda said, hitting Pete gently with her wrench. He said something about her getting grease on his shirt, and Linda flashed him a peace sign with no real sympathy as she returned to the car she was supposed to be working on. She wasn't assigned to Sarah, so Sarah wasn't her responsibility. She'd keep an eye on her, just in case one of the guys tried something gross, but Linda wasn't a babysitter, and she wasn't getting paid enough to pay attention to pretty girls anyway. 

 

Sarah was distracting, even when Linda wasn't paying attention to her. Linda didn't care much about her appearance while she was at work, usually. She worked at an auto shop. She was going to get dirty, and have her jeans dragged down from all the tools she kept on her belt. Now, though, knowing Sarah could see her, Linda was trying to look good. She didn't watch a lot of porn, because the lesbian porn was all catered towards straight men, and Linda didn't care enough about men to want to see them naked. She had, however, grown up around a lot of men, so she knew how they worked. 

 

She knew that there was a trope in porn where a pretty, wide eyed girl walked into the car shop and was greeted by a sweaty, shirtless guy, She knew they always ended up fucking on the hood of the girl’s car, and that it was supposed to be hot. Linda never found it hot, because the girl was always moaning too much, and the guy was fucking weird, with body oil all over his body. 

 

If Linda was going to fuck someone on a car, it wouldn’t be on the hood. Birds tended to shit on car hoods, and the hood was always smooth for the sake of aerodynamics. The backseat, however, was a good option, because it was padded, and it wasn’t out in the open, either. Linda could imagine going down on a girl in the backseat of her truck, with the girl lounging across the back seats, one long, smooth leg thrown over Linda’s shoulder as Linda ate her out. 

 

Linda bit her lip, thinking of curled eyelashes fluttering shut over soft blue eyes, and jet black hair feathering down over sun kissed shoulders. She accidentally made eye contact with one of the other guys, though, and the thought disappeared immediately. Sarah wasn’t interested in her. Sarah probably didn’t even like girls. 

 

Linda knew she wasn’t ugly. She’d had a few guys ask her out in high school, but she’d turned them down for obvious reasons. She wasn’t super attractive, though. She just took care of her skin and made sure to use conditioner when she could. There were definitely people out there who were more attractive than her, and Sarah was one of them. Hopefully, Sarah wasn’t super shallow and she cared more about a person’s personality, but Linda figured that either way, she didn’t have a chance. Sarah was entirely out of her league. Sarah was on a different team. 

 

She ignored Sarah. It was a little rude, but Linda couldn’t think about how pretty Sarah was and how Linda would never have a chance with the girl and still be able to get her job done. Being gay was hard sometimes, especially when women were so awesome and stunning and unfortunately heterosexual. Linda deserved an award. 

 

 

  
  



End file.
